llness of the little town, which seemed such a
metropolis to the two girls from Hillsboro. One day, attracted by Hannah's
shining face of content, he lounged over to the step of her granary, and
began to talk to her through the open doorway.

It happened to come out that the little spinner, while she knew her
letters from having worked them into a sampler, and could make shift to
write her name, could not read or write, and had never had the slightest
instruction in any sort of book-learning. Thereupon the young officer
good-naturedly proposed to be her teacher, if Hannah would like.

Would she _like_! She turned to him a look of such utter ecstasy that he
was quite touched, and went off at: once to get an old "A-B, ab" book.

That was the beginning of a new world to Hannah. She took her young
instructor's breath away by the avidity with which she devoured the
lessons he set her. By the rapt air of exultation with which Hannah
recited them, stepping back and forth by her wheel, you would have
thought that "c-a-t, cat; r-a-t, rat," was the finest poetry ever written.
And in no time at all it was no longer "c-a-t, cat," but "parallel,"
and "phthisis," and such orthographical atrocities, on which the eager
scholar was feeding; for, Hannah's mind was as fresh as her round, rosy
face, and as vigorous as her stout little body.

Captain Winthrop had several reasons for being interested in Hannah; and
when he found her so quick at her spelling, he said he was willing to
occupy some of his enforced leisure in giving her instruction in other
branches. Hannah fell to at this feast of knowledge like a young bear in a
bee-tree.

But there were some difficulties. Like the spelling, arithmetic was all
very well, since she could do that in her head while she spun; but reading
and writing were different. She would not stop her work for them, and so
Captain Winthrop fell into the habit of going over to Master Necronsett's
house in the afternoon with his books, and being there, all ready for a
lesson, when Hannah came hurrying back after she had finished her day's
"stint." As long as there was light to see, she pored over her writing and
reading, while the young officer sat by, ready to help, and talking in a
low tone to Ann Mary.

After a time there grew up a regular routine for Captain Winthrop. In the
mornings he went out to the granary and read aloud to Hannah from a book
called "The Universal Preceptor; being a General Grammar o